Max Renn, the legendarySoviet
mind control agent, faces a terrifying new threat to the global balance
of power--and an opponent who ruthlessly uses Renn's own deepest
secrets to betray him.

That Man

South China Sea
July

I
fingered Max’s
note: Take
the slowest ship you can from Singapore to Pulau Patang. Find a room on
the
second floor with a view of the beach. Drink tuak. Walk the beach twice
a day.
You will be contacted.

As
we got near, it became clear Patang was
hell on stilts. The island remained wildest jungle—no one had tried to
tame it.
The town was a forest of tiny houses jutting out into the water on
three
jetties, thrown together from loose timber and sheets of tin, connected
by
narrow plank walkways with no railings, the whole works as rickety as a
Louisiana toolshed. Theplace
looked
thrown together in three months and built to last as long.

Unwashed
children of three or four dangled
out of windows over a two-story drop to the sea. The plankboard
walkways were
jammed with bicycles and families with their every possession stuffed
into
shopping carts. It was a Dickens-slum-on-the-sea, at least it would
have been
but for the cellphones at every ear and the full-zoot satellite dishes
sprouting like mushrooms from the rooftops.

A
lineup of tankers waited at anchor for
the privilege of tying up to the dock. On the far side, a tall complex
of
chemical tanks and suspended pipelines rose into the inland jungle.

Helicopters
fluttered off an octagonal pad,
derelict boats puttered out to the big ships at anchor, returning with
food,
booze (contraband in nearby Muslim countries) and other, even more
slippery
commodities. Packages openly circulated that, in size and handling,
suggested
contents smokable, snortable or injectable. In broad daylight, guns and
explosives were shipped and received in ones, twos and stacks. Friendly
women
in accidental wardrobes climbed onto the ships and returned to dock
with
pathetic speed.

Well,
if you literally had to get lost—and
surely that was the plan—this was the place for it. If you wanted to
work, you
could, but if you preferred to hang out for months at a time with no
visible
means of support, nobody was asking questions. You didn’t
have to worry about flouting the law—there didn’t appear to be any law
to
flout.